My colleague Professor Ubertaccio has been sounding the
alarm about the danger
to our republic represented by President-Elect Donald Trump. Professor
Ubertaccio is absolutely correct, and Professors Valerie J. Bunce and Mark R.
Beissinger explain how we might lose our democracy in Taking
Democracy for Granted.

Professors Bunce and Beissinger write “The United
States would not be the first long-lasting government to collapse.” They cite three contributing factors. Let me reference them
and illustrate how they are present today.

The first factor is a public opinion that worries about
social disintegration, economic calamity, and a decline in national power. The public
comes to wish for the man on horseback who can restore former greatness.
Tolerance and trust decline and views become polarized. All of this has come to
pass in the United States, with demonization of immigrants who are blamed for
stealing American jobs and committing crimes. The rantings of Alex Jones and headlines
of Breitbart News are evidence of the willingness of many Americans,
including the president-elect, to believe in fake news. This factor has been
with us a long time. In explaining the success of Southern leaders in turning patriotic
men away from their “strong and noble sentiments,” Abraham Lincoln remarked of the leaders, “Accordingly,
they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind.” This has been a Republican project for years.

Bunce and Beissinger continue that the second factor “is
dysfunctional political institutions.” “In failing democracies, public trust in
political institutions declines, and government can no longer fulfill the basic
tasks expected of it. In the American case, there is ample evidence of such
trends—from the Republican obstruction and gridlock in Congress to repeated
attempts to shut the government down. . . Mistrust of government is contagious,
poisoning democratic processes.” Republicans do not fear that government will
not work, they fear that it will. They do all they can to assist its breakdown,
the better to claim that government is a failure. In 2016 they overshot their
target. Republican elites didn’t want Trump either, but their party base had
become so disgusted with the establishment’s failure to deliver for them that
they decamped to Trump.

Third, there is the critical “role of politicians in
terminating democracy.” In modern times, autocrats undermine democracy from
within. Claiming the support of the people they exercise extraordinary powers
to make the country great again. Elections that bring such leaders to power present
unpopular choices to an alienated electorate. Bunce and Beissinger:

Outsider-politicians
exploit public disgust with politics, attack their opponents in personal rather
than policy terms, make grandiose promises, and talk of a return to the good
old days by restoring the culture, society, and status of the past.

Most important is their
claim to defend the nation. This is a perfect issue for ambitious amateur
politicians because it plays so well to public fears about national security,
personal security, and cultural diversity.

Lincoln understood this. As a young
man he delivered his Speech
on the Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions, in which he posited that
America could only be destroyed from within. He foresaw the rise of a certain
kind of leader who could bring about the end of our democracy:

Many great and good men sufficiently
qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition
would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a
presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the
tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an
Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?--Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten
path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.--It sees no distinction in
adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of
others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns
to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It
thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether
at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable
then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with
ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring
up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united
with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally
intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

It is exactly Lincoln’s call
for a people loyal to our republican form to defend against President-Elect Trump
that Professor Ubertaccio encourages. The call is appropriate and urgent.